The Guardian: How did Iran seek to recruit spies inside Israel?

Before Israel launched its war on Iran last month, its security services had uncovered a vast network of its citizens spying for Tehran, on a scale that took the country by surprise.

Since Iran’s first missile barrage on Israel in April 2024, more than 30 Israelis have been accused of collaborating with Iranian intelligence.

The Guardian newspaper reported, “In many cases, the communications began with anonymous messages offering money in exchange for information or simple tasks… The payments then gradually escalated, accompanied by increasingly serious demands.”

According to court documents, Iran’s espionage spree over the past year has achieved little, as Tehran’s ambitions to carry out high-profile assassinations of Israeli officials have failed, the Guardian reported.

“However, the number of Israelis willing to carry out modest missions was sufficient to make the espionage campaign partially successful, as a means of gathering information about strategic sites that could later become targets for Iranian ballistic missiles,” the Guardian said.

In return, Israel spied on Iran in a destructive manner, enabling the Mossad to locate and assassinate a large number of Iranian leaders and nuclear scientists at once in the early hours of Friday, June 13, along with other targets.

Since the beginning of the war, Iranian authorities have arrested more than 700 people on charges of spying for Israel, according to the Iranian Fars News Agency.

In at least six cases, the trials resulted in summary executions, the newspaper reported.

For its part, Israeli authorities have filed detailed indictments against those accused of spying for Iran.

Although only one conviction has been issued so far in the recent wave of arrests—meaning individual guilt is still being assessed—the court documents paint a clear picture of how Iran has used the technology to hunt down potential agents, according to The Guardian.

The operation typically begins with a text message from an anonymous sender.

One such message, from a source called “News Agency,” asked, “Do you have information about the war?

We’re ready to buy it… Another, sent from a source called “Tehran-Jerusalem” to a Palestinian citizen with Israeli citizenship, was more explicit: “Free Jerusalem unites Muslims… Send us information about the war”.

The Guardian said, “The message included a link to Telegram, where a new conversation begins, sometimes with someone using an Israeli name, offering money to complete seemingly simple tasks… If the recipient shows interest, they are advised to download PayPal and an app for receiving payments in cryptocurrency”.

In the case of one suspect arrested on September 29, the first task required was to go to a park and confirm the presence of a black bag buried in a specific location, for a sum of approximately $1,000.

There was no bag, and the recruiter sent a video to prove it.

Later, he was assigned other tasks such as distributing leaflets, hanging banners, or spraying graffiti on walls, mostly with slogans against Benjamin Netanyahu, such as “We’re all against Bibi” (Netanyahu’s nickname), “Bibi brought Hezbollah here,” or “Bibi = Hitler”.

Then came the photography… An Israeli of Azerbaijani origin was recruited to take photos of sensitive installations across the country, and he apparently turned it into a “family business,” with relatives joining him in taking photos of Haifa port facilities (later targeted by Iranian missiles in the 12-day war), the Nevatim air base in the Negev (which was hit by a barrage of rockets in October), Iron Dome batteries deployed across the country, and the military intelligence headquarters in Glilot, north of Tel Aviv, according to the Guardian.

The same recruit assigned to search for the black bag was later asked to photograph the home of a nuclear scientist working at the Weizmann Institute, Israel’s foremost scientific center, which was of great interest to Iran.

Over the 15 years preceding the war, five Iranian nuclear scientists had been assassinated, with Mossad likely behind these operations.

In a long-running struggle over whether Israel would maintain its monopoly on nuclear weapons in the Middle East, Tehran sought to retaliate.

Iran targeted the Weizmann Institute with ballistic missiles during the 12-day war, and it’s likely that the images captured by its agents contributed to the strikes.

However, the attempt to assassinate the scientists failed.

In fact, neither the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence nor the Revolutionary Guards appear to have succeeded in assassinating any of their targets during this long, covert war.

While Mossad relied on planting a group of highly trained agents inside Iran, Iranian intelligence took a different approach: testing the willingness of new recruits to move forward.

Israeli intelligence expert Yossi Melman, citing a Shin Bet official, described it as a “spray-and-pray approach,” attempting to develop a limited number of reliable agents through a low-risk investment in a large number of other recruits.

After completing simple tasks such as hanging banners and taking photos, recruits are asked to perform larger tasks for more money.

For example, after taking photographs of the home of a nuclear scientist at the Weizmann Institute, “one of them was offered $60,000 to assassinate the scientist and his family and burn down their home”.

According to the indictment, the agent agreed and began recruiting four young Arab Israelis.

On the night of September 15, the alleged assassination team arrived at the gates of the Weizmann Institute, but were unable to get past the security guards and left quietly.

The day after the scandal, the Iranian recruiters asked him to return to the institute and take new photos.

Thanks to his status as an “Israeli Jew,” he was able to convince the guards to allow him in during the day and photograph the scientist’s car.

He was paid $709 and asked if he would be willing to install a GPS tracking device on the car, but he refused.

This pattern was repeated repeatedly in the indictments.

Although Iranian recruiters proved effective in finding Israelis willing to pose for photos and distribute leaflets in exchange for money, recruiters in Tehran apparently were too quick to turn them into long-term operatives.

Several recruits—just days after carrying out their first missions—were asked to consider carrying out assassinations of senior officials.

The Azerbaijani group was asked to find a hired assassin, but they refused.

The recruit who refused to place a tracking device on the scientist’s car was asked days later whether he would agree to throw a Molotov cocktail at Netanyahu’s car.

So far, only one suspect has been convicted and sentenced to prison, after he pleaded guilty to the charges against him.

When Iranian intelligence approached Mordechai “Moti” Maman, (72), last spring, he had recently married a younger woman and was in desperate need of money after several failed business ventures.

Maman had spent “years in the city of Samandağ ” in southern Türkiye, and in April, he contacted two businessmen he knew there, looking for business opportunities.

The brothers told him they had a “lucrative business partnership with an Iranian named “Edi,” who imports dried fruits and spices,” and suggested he meet him.

In April, Maman traveled to Samandağ via Cyprus, but Eddy sent two of his colleagues instead, saying he couldn’t leave Iran for bureaucratic reasons.

The following month, Maman was invited back to Türkiye, to the southeastern town of Yüksekova, where he stayed in a hotel at Eddy’s expense.

Once again, Eddie said he couldn’t cross into Türkiye, but told Maman that there was a way to smuggle him into Iran.

He agreed, and on May 5, he was smuggled out in a truck.

Eddie and another Iranian official met him at a luxury hotel in Iran and offered him large sums of money in exchange for three tasks: to leave money or weapons in specific locations inside Israel, to take photos of crowded places, and to transmit threats to other agents, specifically Palestinian Israelis who had received money from Iran to carry out hostile missions but had not carried them out.

Maman said he would think about it and was smuggled back to Türkiye.

There, he was given $1,300 in cash as a down payment.

In August, Maman returned to Türkiye and was smuggled out again to meet with “Edi” and his assistant.

This time, the missions were more daring; The Iranians offered $150,000 for the assassination of either Netanyahu, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, or then-Defense Minister Yoav Galant.

According to the prosecution, Maman claimed to have connections in the underworld that could help him carry out the mission, but demanded $1 million.

The Iranians considered this sum too high, and proposed a lesser target: former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, for $400,000, however, Maman persisted, and no agreement was reached.

Maman received $5,000, traveled to Cyprus, and then on August 29 returned to Tel Aviv, where Shin Bet agents were waiting for him.

On April 29, Maman was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of contacting a foreign agent and illegally entering an enemy state.

His attorney, Eyal Beserglik, described the sentence as excessively harsh and has appealed.

Besirglik said that his client believed, until the last moment, that “Edi” was simply an Iranian businessman involved in the raisin and spice trade, and that he had no idea he was being transported into Iran when the truck was brought in.

He denies that Maman asked for $1 million, and asserts that his client was forced to pretend to agree to the Iranians’ plans for fear that a sudden refusal would lead to his death.

“What was the alternative? To be kidnapped into a truck or killed?” Besirglik told The Guardian, adding that Maman was beaten in prison and held in a filthy cell strewn with feces.

“He made a grave mistake, but he shouldn’t die because of it, because in the end there will be no one to hold him accountable,” the lawyer continued, according to The Guardian.